Yasser Arafat, former president of the PLO, died in a Paris hospital on November 20, 2004 after weeks of illness.
Arafat was one of the first leaders of the organized Palestinian struggle to liberate their land. Later he turned to negotiations with Israel, entering the Oslo Accords with American mediation and accepted the two-state solution. Progress was halted due to Israeli obstacles and the expansion of settlements, and in his last years his relations with Israel deteriorated sharply.